"Do you want to hold an M16?" Sgt. Danny Fisher asks from the driver's seat of the van as Megan Jaye '06 takes the sleek, black weapon into her hands.
It's 9:30 a.m. on a cold but clear Saturday in the near-empty parking lot of a Wendy's, and Fisher and Jaye are waiting to pick up a documentary filmmaker before they depart for Fort Dix, the largest military base in the New York metropolitan area.
Minutes later, Jaye — clad in Army fatigues, her face hidden under streaks of black and green paint — studies a map while Fisher guides the van through this small South Jersey community of Wrightstown, its main street lined with fast food chains and liquor stores.
It isn't long before she and Fisher reach the base's security checkpoint, where quiet suburbia gives way to military life. A retired tank and a pair of cannons — a kind of martial art— greet visitors driving through the perimeter. Men and women with automatic rifles, standing no more than 100 yards from the road, take aim at the targets on a firing range.
Five miles inside this base at the northern edge of the Pine Barrens, five Princeton students and two students from The College of New Jersey — participating in a two-day field training exercise — stand in the woods and await their next mission.
The exercise, which is typically conducted once a semester, allows ROTC participants to practice battle drills in a simulated war zone and prepares juniors in the group for the five-week Leadership Development and Assessment Course, a mandatory program held each summer at Fort Lewis, Wash.
On this second day of training, the five University students — John Donnal '07, Ramiro Guerrero '09, Carlos Del Pozo '08, George Puryear '09 and George Schwartz '07 — silently mill about a clearing in the trees. Like Jaye, each is adorned in customary combat attire: black boots, fatigues, a helmet, a backpack, camouflage face paint and an M16 that shoots blanks.
Though they look and act the part of combat soldiers — a few cadets even stand guard against an imaginary enemy while the others enjoy a snack — they occasionally betray their Ivy League day jobs. During a brief break, two of the guys quietly chat about recent events on campus.
A few minutes later, another member of the group is giving Guerrero some advice on his face paint. "You're light all over," he says to Guerrero. "Something you might want to invest in: a camo compact."
It's strange to see these students wielding M16s and discussing military strategy, almost as if this is some elaborate version of playground warfare, though they are no younger than many of the men and women now fighting and dying in Iraq.
"If I go down by sniper fire," group leader Donnal says as they prepare to depart, "Alpha leader takes charge, then Beta."
"Let's get this mission underway," he adds. "Lock and load."
ROTC at Princeton
Though Jaye certainly has her hands full this year — the history major from West Point, N.Y., is a singer in the chapel choir, an officer at Quad and a volunteer for the SAT tutoring program Let's Get Ready — she said she doesn't find herself having to choose between school and ROTC.
"Academics always come first," she said. "It's been very manageable to do ROTC and school and other activities as well."
Each week, Princeton ROTC officers are expected to attend a military science class and a physical training session. And for three Friday afternoons each semester, the students participate in skills training exercises around campus.
"It can be hard [to balance school and ROTC]," Schwartz said, "but when it's a priority for you, it's just like a varsity sport. You make time for it."
Guerrero, a freshman from Texas, agreed. "Like anything, it's a time commitment and you know you need to get it done," he said. "[The leaders] want school to come first, no matter what."
Combat
The mission is now underway and the seven cadets, arranged in staggered V formations, walk stealthily, guns drawn, over the pine needles carpeting the forest floor.
Bursts from M16s thunder in the distance, while a group of ROTC cadets from another school patrol the adjacent area, completing the surreal, war movie-like tableau.
Suddenly, a shot rings out. The students have come under simulated fire from two enemies placed about 100 yards ahead.
"Anybody see where that came from?" Donnal yells.
"Ten o'clock! Don't know how far or how many," Schwartz replies.
"Ten o'clock, Roger!" Donnal says.
A minute later, the woods are filled with the sound and sulphuric smell of gunfire.
"Got contact!" someone yells.
"Open fire!"
"I'm up, I'm moving, I'm down," Schwartz says, sprinting ahead several yards before dropping to the forest floor.
As the fighting intensifies, the mission winds to a close. One by one, the soldiers caught out of position — exposed for too long to enemy fire — are pronounced dead and fall to the sandy ground.
In this war, when the battle is over, they all stand up.
Why they joined
"I've always been interested in serving my country," Schwartz said.
Schwartz, an English major from Minnesota, said he looked into all of the branches of the military before deciding the Army was the best for him.
"I joined [ROTC] my freshman year, and I signed my life away, sort of, my sophomore year," he said. "It was the proudest day of my life."
Students who join ROTC don't have to make a full commitment to the program until the beginning of their junior year, Jaye said. Once graduated from college, though, officers are expected to complete four years of active duty and four years of inactive reserves, or eight years of active reserves.
Jaye, whose parents both served in the Army, said the idea of service had always been in the back of her mind, but that she didn't expect to stick with ROTC for this long.
"I thought I would go along for the ride for a little while, and I loved it," she said.
For her participation in the program, Jaye receives a hefty scholarship, providing her with free tuition and books as well as a monthly stipend.
Guerrero said ROTC is both challenging and rewarding.
"How many times do you have the chance to put on camo, carry an M16, run through the woods and live out what a live action situation would be like?" he said. "Normally at Princeton, you wouldn't have that experience."
Mission accomplished
Back at the van, Jaye unveils a lunch fit for soldiers: Meals Ready to Eat, or MREs.
"Some of them are actually not that bad," she says.
The tightly wrapped beige packages — packed even tighter with carbohydrates — contain a surprising amount of food.
One MRE, for instance, includes pineapple pound cake, wheat snack bread, M&Ms, cheese spread with jalapenos, jalapeno ketchup, French vanilla cappuccino mix and a grilled seasoned chicken breast.
Though most of the food is edible — half-tasty, even — the slab of yellowish matter purporting to be chicken repulses even the hungriest of stomachs.
After a long day of combat, thank God for Wendy's.
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